Igniting Inspiration

Bettering the World

Grawemeyer Award winners receive their awards

The power of new ideas took center stage April 9-11 when recipients of the 2019 Grawemeyer Awards came to Louisville to present their award-winning ideas.

The honorees were a music composer who blended sounds from diverse cultures, neuroscientists who studied how addiction changes the brain, a religious scholar who researched the demise of white Christian influence and the creators of a human rights index that gauges a nation’s progress toward fulfilling social and economic rights.

After a whirlwind week of presentations and meet-and-greets, the winners were honored at a gala event April 11 where they received their award medallions and $100,000 prize. See photos here.

H. Charles Grawemeyer, industrialist, entrepreneur, astute investor and philanthropist, created the Grawemeyer Awards at the University of Louisville in 1984. To a remarkable extent, he put his personal stamp on the awards, which surely are his shining legacy. They are devoted to the beauty of creativity and the power of great ideas to change the world.

A concerto linking musicians from vastly different culturesto “bloom in full glory.” That was composer Joel Bons’ vision behind “Nomaden,” a work for cello and a wide array of Asianinstruments. The piece, which won the 2019 GrawemeyerAward for Music Composition, captures a growing artistic trend to juxtapose themes and influences in innovative ways.

music for a new world

Human rights 'how-to'

Is quality of life improving for people everywhere? A tool allowing each nation in the world to measure itsprogress toward that goal won the 2019 Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order. "FulfillingSocial and Economic Rights,” a book by Sakiko Fukuda-Parr,Terra Lawson-Remer and Susan Randolph, is a primer for advancing human rights worldwide.

Addiction and the brain

Why do people get hooked on drugs? University ofMichigan researchers Kent Berridge and Terry Robinson received the 2019 Grawemeyer Award for Psychology for explaining exactly how it happens in our brains.Their findings could lead to better treatments for drug addiction, gambling and binge eating compulsions,and even schizophrenia and depression.

Disappearing Christians

White Protestantism has dominated U.S politics and culturefor much of the country’s history, but that’s changing. So says Robert P. Jones, a public policy researcher who won the 2019 Grawemeyer Award in Religion for “The End of White Christian America.” Jones found that white Protestants are no longer amajority, which he says will alter the U.S. political climate.